Heike Schänzel

Heike Annette Schänzel (born 1966) is a German–New Zealand academic, and is a full professor in the School of Hospital and Tourism at the Auckland University of Technology, specialising in research on gender and family issues in tourism.

Academic career
Schänzel grew up in Germany and worked as a travel consultant, but moved to New Zealand after enjoying a motorbike touring holiday there in the 1990s. She completed a PhD titled Family Time and Own Time on Holiday: Generation, Gender, and Group Dynamic Perspectives from New Zealand at Victoria University of Wellington. Her thesis won the inaugural Dean's award in the School of Management. Schänzel then joined the faculty at Auckland University of Technology, rising to full professor from January 2024.

Schänzel's research is focused on exploring how tourism and hospitality relate to intergenerational relationships and gender. This involves looking at issues such as feminism, childism, sustainability and social justice in tourism. She has also published on the sexual politics of tourism research, and the risks for women, LGBTQ researchers and people from ethnic minorities in undertaking tourism geography fieldwork. Schänzel has co-edited six books, including Children, Families and Leisure in 2018, Tourism Education and Asia in 2019, and Masculinities in the Field: Tourism and Transdisciplinary Research in 2021. She has published forty book chapters and supervised more than thirty postgraduate theses.

Schänzel is the chief co-editor of the specialty journal Social Impact of Tourism.